Facebook Just Announced a Controversial Move that is Going to Infuriate the Police State

As the dubious provisions of the PATRIOT Act expired last night at midnight, the NSA began rolling up its cords, turned off their computer monitors and took to rewriting their resumes to find new work. Oh wait, sorry, that didn’t happen at all.

No surveillance sites have been shut down, no NSA employees have been laid off, and business as usual went off without a hitch this morning.

If the government has proven anything over the last decade and a half, it’s that they are not afraid of lying. Assange, Manning, and Snowden have all exposed illegal functions of the US government that we were told never existed.

The bottom line is that short of a radical change in the US government, domestic spying will continue; regardless of the public dog and pony shows implying otherwise.

More and more Americans realize the need to keep their information private and companies are responding to this demand.

Last year Google and Apple responded to this demand by offering their customers encryption technology that protects users’ privacy. The next big name to jump on the bandwagon of encryption is the social media giant, Facebook.

To enhance the privacy of this email content, today we are gradually rolling out an experimental new feature that enables people to add OpenPGPpublic keys to their profile; these keys can be used to “end-to-end” encrypt notification emails sent from Facebook to your preferred email accounts. People may also choose to share OpenPGP keys from their profile, with or without enabling encrypted notifications.

PGP stands for Pretty Good Privacy. It’s actually very good privacy. If used correctly, it can protect the contents of your messages, text, and even files from being understood even by well-funded government surveillance programs.

Naturally, the government who just said they will stop spying on Americans, is up in arms because this new encryption won’t let them spy on Americans.

This hardened stance is frustrating law enforcement, who fear they will lose access to vital evidence. When Apple announced it would implement strong encryption on its iOS mobile operating system, for example, one senior US police officer claimed the iPhone “will become the phone of choice for the pedophile.” But Apple argues that it is imperative that it protects users’ privacy, with CEO Tim Cook saying the company has “never worked with any government agency from any country to create a backdoor in any of our products or services… And we never will.”

Since the inception of personal data encryption, the government has been trying to force companies to build back doors into the systems to allow the state to spy.

However, Vint Cerf, known as one of the “co-founders of the internet” explains the dangers in such a program. “If you have a back door, somebody will find it, and that somebody may be a bad guy or bad guys, and they will intentionally abuse their access,” said Cerf.

“Creating this kind of technology is super-, super-risky,” he added. “I don’t think that that’s the right answer.”

The need to encrypt personal data grows daily as entire countries provide refuge to criminal hackers out to steal your identity. Attempting to stifle actual security by implementing known vulnerabilities is a terrible idea.

The US government can’t even keep their own data secure. They proved this notion last month when hackers hit the IRS to gain information on 100,000 taxpayers. Now they want to stop private companies from trying prevent similar data breaches? This is an asinine and dangerous approach.

This move by Facebook to secure its users’ data should be supported. Technology is our shield from those who wish to do us harm, and from tyranny. It’s time we embrace it and foster these ideas that protect privacy.

Share this article with your friends and family to get them on board with encrypting and protecting their privacy.

Sorry, no cigar here folks. I began using PGP almost 15 years ago. The feds leaned on them to the point of trying to put the companies pres in jail unless he turned over/created master keys or created a back door. He didn’t go to jail, so the outcome could only have been what?

Facebook is supposed to be for the people and by the people…. And in this police state that we live in, where they do as they please and still when its apparent that our rights are being violated on a daily basis somewhere in america… And by whom? The very people that swore to protect and serve the citizens of america, to make for a better America… Well Facebook has a duty as an enterprise that is supposed to protect its users, but its not protecting its users when ppl are being jailed for comments or posts, or pics they put on Fb… U aren’t helping the people by allowing the government to examine our lives and decide our intent or demeanor and jail us for our opinions or statements… You are giving them this power Fb, freedom of speech, religion, press… We have these rights… Constitutionally! The declaration of independence states in paragraph 2… We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights. That among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness… Fb, give me my constitutional rights back and tell them to get a warrant when they wanna look at someone’s msg or page… If u r for the ppl then you won’t put up with allowing the bullies to continue bullying…

Read: “encrypt NOTIFICATION EMAILS sent from Facebook to your preferred email accounts.” – Big deal? NOT! This does not mean that what is actually important is encrypted – so far as we know, it’s not, ONLY NOTIFICATION EMAILS, so this only looks like a publicity stunt.

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